(Image source from: Why Congress lost so badly in elections 2014})
Narendra Modi led BJP to a landslide victory, winning 282 seats in the Lok Sabha elections 2014. The Congress debacle, with an all-time low performance of 44 seats only. Numbers apart, what is significant is that the Congress policies and style of governance has been rejected by the people of India. The failure of the Congress cannot be attributed to anti-incumbency alone, but the seemingly lack of action against corruption, price rise and economic recession. Here are some crucial factors responsible for Congress defeat in this general elections.
Pan-India rejection of Congress policies and promises
The Congress' debacle is the result of total rejection of the party's policies and style of governance. Not only the rich and middle-class living in cities have rejected the Congress, but also the poor and dalits for whom the Congress claims to have worked have disowned the party. During its campaign, the Congress focused on the “rights-based legislation framework” it set up in the last 10 years. But the very people, dalits and underpriviledged, for whom the Congress claimed to have work seem to have rejected them. In Uttar Pradesh, where the poor and the dalits have traditionally voted for Mayawati and/or Congress, have rejected them completely and voted en masse for the BJP. Similarly, Orissa, one of the poorest states in India, chose Naveen Patnaik's BJD. Bihar, which is home to the poorest in the country, voted against the Congress as well as JD(U), which seemed close to the party.
The mandate that the BJP got is not possible with one or two sections supporting the party. In fact, BJP's massive victory tells of a pan-India support for the party, except from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Good work doesn’t need advertising
Post electoral-rout, the Congress has been saying that its good work was not communicated to the people. But if the Congress indeed worked for the people in the last 10 years, it's impact should have been felt by the people and need not be communicated. Good work doesn’t need the support of advertising as is exemplified by three terms of Narendra Modi in Gujarat, the 4 victories by Naveen Patnaik in Orissa or the 3 wins of Sheila Dikshit in Delhi.
Inspite of Congress claims, the party did run massive campaigns on the national TV. It used the government machinery at its disposal, as well as the Congress party’s own campaign – “Har Haath Shakti, Har Haath Tarakki”. The Congress campaign focused on development and empowerment, so claims of not communicating its work has been negated.
The truth is that when the campaign claims do not match the delivery of work then people vent their anger by voting out the government. The Congress-led UPA government's fate in elections 2014 is somewhat similar to the BJP-led Government that was voted out in 2004. At that time NDA campaigns claimed 'India shining', which failed to impress the vast majority of India's population reeling under poverty.
Corruption will not be tolerated
During its 10 years in power, the Congress did not take the issue of corruption seriously claiming that it was over-hyped by the media. When the anti-corruption movement started in the country and Kejriwal won a surprising majority in the Delhi assembly, the Congress should have assessed the mood of the people. So the people decided to act themselves by voting out corrupt leaders. Tainted leaders like A. Raja (2G), Sriprakash Jaiswal (Coalgate), Pawan Bansal (Railgate) suffered huge losses in this election.
The 2014 electoral mandate is a message to the Congress and other political parties that corruption will not be tolerated. Also parties will need to change their economic policies and political style to be in tandem with the changing dynamics of time. The fact was realised by Narendra Modi and the BJP reaped huge dividends in the form of electoral gains.
(Picture Source: livemint.com)
(AW: Pratima Tigga)
